Until Then
by DeCipherr43
Summary: Dan had been missing for almost two weeks, and it was slowly driving Phil insane...
1. Chapter 1

Phanfiction – Until Then 12/02/2015

 **Phil's POV**

Life was weird. Happy for sure, but weird. I mean, being a well-educated 28 year old who lives in a London apartment with a 24 year old YouTuber friend can't exactly be classified as normal. But, despite all of the smutty fanfictions that covered most of the phandom, Dan and I were just friends.

We got along well. Constantly collaborating on videos and being there for moral support during a Tumblr tag were just a part of our lives. We teased each other, but that's what friends do. Even in our annual QnA called 'Phil is not on fire', we would simply adore enjoying each other's company and being on camera. But not anymore. Dan Howell, my greatest companion and best friend, was missing.

He said that he would only be out for an hour or two that cold winter night, but he wasn't back home when I went to sleep that night or when I woke up. Immediately, I called the authorities. They told me not to worry. So I tried to ignore it. It's not like he could have been drunk. We had a live show to do that day! But he didn't come home for a day. Or a week.

Being myself, I called the authorities again. They said they would look for Dan, but he hadn't come home. It had been a few days. Meaning that for the past week and a half, there had been no uploads on either of our channels or any tweets, FaceBook statuses, Tumblr reblogs. Nothing. We hadn't done a live show for the past two weeks. The amount of comments we got were rapidly growing. The fans were getting angry. Sighing with a not-so-small amount of depression, I opened Twitter and tweeted an apology.

" _Sorry there hasn't been much going on, guys. We're having some pretty big problems that I'm not gonna talk about so shush."_

Of course, within a few seconds the comments got to be too much for me. 'What happened?' 'Is everything okay?' There was one that triggered my emotions. 'Where's Dan?' Getting angry, I threw towards the fireplace on the other side of the room. It hit the mantelpiece, falling onto the floorboards screen down. It was probably cracked, but I didn't care. I only cared about Dan.

Since Dan had gone missing, I had felt numb. I didn't know what to do with my life. I ate and drank only enough so that I could survive. I wasn't even snacking from Dan's cereal box. Until then, I had been sitting on the couch, staring at the wall. If Dan were here, he would have cracked a joke, imitated a meme or made some sort of random comment about a placenta. _If Dan was here_. Those words rang through my head, somehow growing louder and louder in the soundlessness of my brain. All I could see in my mind's eye was Dan. His chocolate eyes, his dark brown hair that was literally the mirror image of my own. For the first time since Dan had disappeared, I cried. A single bitter tear rolled down my cheek, and then came a tsunami.

 _I can't do this,_ I thought to myself as I wiped away the salty water that now coated my Voldemort-pale complexion. _How am I supposed to survive without Dan? He's my best friend, and I clearly cannot live without him. I've just been sitting on my butt for the past couple of weeks, not even_ trying _to find him._

Walking myself through each step, I slowly rose from the couch and started making my way down the Mount Everest of stairs that lead to the main entrance of the apartment building Dan and I lived in. Beginning to panic about what I was about to get myself into, I tripped and fell. Fell down to the very bottom. At some point though I'm not sure when, my head collided with the edge of a step, hard. When I ended up in a tangled ball of limbs at the bottom, I could feel myself slipping into unconsciousness.

But my determination to locate the whereabouts of Dan was too strong. I picked myself up off the ground despite the immense struggle, and as I put my hand on the doorknob that led outside, black dots began to swarm my vision. With the last of my energy, I opened the door and found myself standing face to face with a familiar brown-haired boy dressed completely in black who was only a centimeter taller than me.

"D-Dan?" I began, but the dots took over and I fell, only to be caught by the person I entrusted my life in the most.

I woke up to see the same familiar patterns of the ceiling in my bedroom. Had it all been a dream? Wait, my head still felt really bad like it had been hit against a step. I was in reality! I slowly pushed myself up to see Dan sitting at the foot of my bed, his head in his hands as if he was deep in thought.

"Dan?" I asked. He immediately spun around and relief flooded through him.

"Thank God you're okay," he sighed, coming to sit next to me. I looked at him in utter shock.

"Me?" I demanded. "Thank God _I'm_ okay? You've been missing for two weeks, Dan! What even happened to you, anyway?" Dan seemed to blush and he looked down.

"I-I barely even remember," he stuttered, seemingly lost for words. I finally noticed the stain of blood on his grey tee shirt to the lower left of his stomach.

"What happened to you?!" I yelled, rushing to inspect his wound. There was a gash with dried blood around it, and it looked pretty bad.

"I'm fine," Dan assured me. "Phil, stop worrying." I just shook my head and put my arms around him for a hug. Dan wasn't usually the hugging type since he was very specific about his personal bubble, but for once he just went with it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey guys! Sorry it's been really long but I lost access to my account because I'm a forgetful weirdo. Anyways, I wasn't planning on continuing this one but you people seemed to want me to so I guess I will!**

 **Dan's POV**

It had been a few days since I came back to the apartment. Phil kept trying to ask me what had happened but I wouldn't tell him. It would just make him mad and protective, which I didn't need. Other than that, we continued with our lives as normal. I continued to tweet at ungodly hours of the day like nothing happened, and I chose to ignore the comments asking what happened and that everyone thought I had actually died.

"Dan?" Phil asked from across the room with concern in his voice. I sighed, knowing exactly where this conversation was headed. "Look, I know you're not gonna tell me what happened. I want to know, but I guess you have the right to keep it to yourself. But will you at least tell me why?"

"It's not that big of a deal," I told him. Phil stared at me in total bewilderment.

"Not a big deal?" he asked. "NOT A BIG DEAL?!" Phil slammed his laptop shut and stood up. He was shaking with anger. "Dan, you were missing for two weeks! How is that not a big deal? All I could do was sit here and pray that you weren't dead! I didn't talk to anyone, I barely ate, I was worried to death! Literally! So you can't just sit there and act like nothing even happened."

I stood up too. "I just don't want you to know," I said softly, trying to sound sympathetic. I knew that my best friend was upset, but I still didn't want to say what happened. "It's bad, Phil. I just don't want to talk about it."

"Dan," Phil said, suddenly a lot quieter. "What. Happened. I'm not going to leave you alone about it until you tell me." Phil just stood there expectedly.

"Fine," I responded, losing control of all the anger and sorrow I had been trying to bottle up since I got home. "You wanna know what happened? Some guy attacked me. He tried to kill me. He kidnapped me and kept me hostage with a few other people for his own terrorism reason or something. After about a week and a half, I figured out a way to get out. The others made it, but I was caught in the act. From then he started beating me. A few hours before I came back, he had had enough and he tried to stab me. Somehow I deflected it and he ended up being the one to get killed. After that, I came home to find you almost unconscious."

Phil just stared, a look of regret on his face from losing his temper. He didn't say anything; just stood there looking guilty.

"I almost died, Phil," I told him quietly. "I was this close," I said, holding up my fingers with less than an inch gap between them. "I just, I didn't want to talk about it. And I still wish I didn't. I just feel worse now. I've had nightmares every day, and they just steadily become more vivid and horrifying."

"W-W," Phil stuttered, at a total loss for words. "Where did you get hurt?" I turned around and lifted the back of my shirt up for him to see the garden of bruises and lash marks. I could feel his eyes analyzing all the marks. After a few moments, I dropped my shirt back down and turned to face my raven-haired friend. There were tears welling up in his eyes.

"Stop crying," I said, but it was hypocritical because I was beginning to cry as well. I buried my face in my hands, and I was shocked when I felt two arms wrap themselves around me. I looked up, and my slightly shorter roommate looked back. I shut my eyes and hugged back. The silence wasn't awkward. His hug was simply comforting, which was all I really needed.


End file.
